


Things I'm Not

by thesometimeswarrior



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Ficlet, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-22 22:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13774362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior
Summary: The words sound hollow the instant she hears them leave her lips, but she keeps saying them anyway. "I'm here, Katniss. I'm here."Mrs. Everdeen, after the War.Takes place at the end ofMockingjay.





	Things I'm Not

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iceshade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iceshade/gifts).



The words sound hollow the instant she hears them leave her lips, but her daughter is _dead_ , and her husband is _dead_ , and her other daughter is burnt and scarred in so many more ways than one and was almost _dead_ ( _again_ , was almost dead _again_ ) and is delirious on morphling, and hearing the words from her own mouth is reassuring, reminds her that this time—though, were she to allow herself to think about it for more than a passing moment, she suspects that the grief would bury her vocal cords along with the rest of her—this time she can speak, this time she has not failed as completely as she did before, so she keeps saying them. “I’m here, Katniss. I’m here.”

Her daughter doesn’t respond much, hooked on morphling and delirious from pain and probable grief and certain trauma as she is. She wonders if the girl—not really a girl, not anymore, not for so many, far too many years now—can hear her at all. She almost hopes that Katniss _can’t_ hear her, because the words sound like a taunt on her tongue. _I’m here, Katniss, I’m here now, after I forced you to learn to live without me, I’m here but far too late, I wasn’t a parent when you needed me and I didn’t protect you from all the horrible things that have happened to you in the past year-and-a-half and Prim is dead and I’m here. Prim is dead, and for some reason, I’m still here._

When her daughter eventually manages to sit up, stand up, walk, is discharged from the hospital, the no-longer-a-girl is locked in a silence that is so sickeningly familiar. She should be understanding, she thinks, precisely _because_ she knows what this is, has been there in that dark slogging place herself, but manages to feel only resentment when she looks at Katniss. _I need you to be the strong one_ , she thinks and hates herself for it. _Why aren’t you the strong one? Your father’s gone, and Prim’s gone, and it feels now like you’re as good as gone—who’s going to take care of me?_

She is a failure.

This is not new information, but that she is confronted with this truth in its distilled form every time she looks at her daughter is too much to bear. She throws herself into her work, as if taking care of someone, _anyone_ will make up for the fact that she cannot and has not taken care of the people who have needed her most. (It doesn’t, but it’s a distraction, at least, give her an excuse to not gaze at the concrete and living reminders of all the ways she has been inadequate.) 

She sends her daughter back to Twelve without her, with the people who have actually tried to keep her safe. 

_Coward_ , like _mother_ , is a word she tries not to use.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I love comments!


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